Nervous system

Real People, Real Results​

Nathan recovers from Guillain-Barre Syndrome on the carnivore diet

Nathan is 47 years old, married, and a father of three. He spent 11 years traveling in the U.S. Army and several years as an operative in the U.S. Intelligence community. He says he had always worked out and stayed fit without following a particular diet and ate whatever he wanted.

In his early forties, Nathan began noticing more injuries and what he thought were age-related issues. He showed signs of adult acne, radial neuropathy, premature balding, and skin tags. He also developed symptoms of inflammation, such as gingivitis, tinnitus, and plantar fasciitis.

“In hindsight, I was intensely sick. I was very insulin resistant and probably pre-diabetic. I put my body through a lot. Between the stress of my job, a poor diet, and everything I went through, I’m confident that my metabolic health was damaged. The only thing I was doing well for myself was lifting weights and exercising” Looking for a way to improve his health, Nathan began a ketogenic diet in 2016.

“I ate bacon and eggs for breakfast and steak or salmon for dinner. I usually had a big salad for lunch with bacon and avocado. One day, I was too lazy to make my salad, and the next morning, my gums didn’t bleed when I flossed. It hadn’t been like that in ages.”

Nathan skipped the salad for a second day and noticed new hair growing on top of his head, and the ringing in his ears from tinnitus was gone. “I realized the difference between me and optimal health was a salad!”

Nathan credits a ketogenic diet for improving his body composition and restoring his energy levels but says, “I did not recover my health until I went carnivore in 2019.”

In August 2022, Nathan suffered a health scare that stopped him in his tracks. One day, he was at work, and suddenly his hands and feet went numb. Within 48 hours, he was almost completely paralyzed from a neurological condition called Guillain-Barre Syndrome (GBS).

Nathan’s doctors expected him to be hospitalized for up to eight weeks and would need several months more of physical therapy to regain the movement, feeling, strength, and endurance he had lost. However, he walked out of the hospital just two weeks later. He went to one outpatient physical therapy appointment, and the doctor told him he didn’t need to return.

“I view the last several years of following a ketogenic and then a carnivore diet as making deposits into my health account,” Nathan explains. “When I got hit by GBS, I was able to recover in such a way that it didn’t have the same impact on me that it has had on others who end up in wheelchairs. Twenty days after it happened, I was playing in the front yard with my kids.”

Since his full recovery six months ago, Nathan has enjoyed traveling in his RV with his family and also runs a coaching and consulting business out of his home in Texas.

“We all have the same goals. We all want to be happy, healthy, and fit. How do you build the daily habits to get there? My approach to lifestyle design helps put you on a path to get where you want to be.”

 

Amanda B heals from migraines, gastroparesis, IBS, gastritis, anxiety, and SIBO

Amanda is located near Eugene, Oregon, and has an amazing healing story.

In 2011, Amanda began experiencing intermittent episodes of symptoms. She says, “I was getting intermittent bouts of flu-type symptoms where it was like every three or four months. I just started getting nausea, vomiting, dizziness, lightheadedness, brain fog.” This lasted from 2011 to 2015”

Her symptoms would continue, worsening over a four year and three doctor period, with no answers or relief. “I was having severe diarrhea, vomiting every morning, dry heaving; it just was exhausting. Then to try to go to work after multiple hours of being sick.”

In 2018, she ended up in the ER, and “they found a fecal block in my small intestine. I had to go through 14 days of a water fast, with two bowel preps, to clear the fecal block in my small intestine.” Amanda had a colonoscopy, which found nothing. All of her tests in 2018 were normal. “They never talked to me about diet.”

“At the end of 2019, my sister-in-law said ‘have you ever heard of SIBO, small intestinal bacterial overgrowth?” Amanda would learn she did have SIBO, and started following a keto diet. Keto would help a little, but she still had the same symptoms.

In November 2020, Amanda had a “massive migraine with a seizure, brought on by sugar, that left me with stroke-like symptoms.” She had to stay in her bed, with all the windows covered and silent, and could not walk or dress herself.

Because of visual symptoms, she saw an optometrist, who sent her to a neurologist for an MRI. She was still “completely non-functional.” The neurologist saw something wrong with her optic nerve and some swelling of her cranial arteries and started her on Topamax, which didn’t help at all.

She was prescribed hormones and anti-anxiety medications, which only helped a little. Amanda could only look at screens for 15 minutes before going temporarily blind in 2022.


By the end of 2021, Amanda still had the same symptoms. A friend suggested that she had idiopathic intracranial hypertension, and Amanda found a carnivore YouTuber who had healed from it. On February 5, 2022, Amanda started her carnivore diet. “Within 12 days, my visuals were almost completely gone… My head pressure was gone.” Her next MRI would show that the arteries in her head were back to normal. “By August of last year, I would say that I was about 80 percent better.”


At this point, Amanda’s eyes have returned to normal. Her neurologist continued to say that she shouldn’t be on a carnivore diet (despite witnessing her progress) while her primary care supported her choice since it helped. Her optometrist is now also following a carnivore diet, as is her father.


She is back to working and is also now a carnivore and fasting coach.

 

Ashley manages multiple sclerosis on the carnivore diet

Ashley lives in the eastern United States, and Ashley’s diet for most of her life was “meat and two vegetables.” She says that she wasn’t a sweet eater and didn’t eat much junk food either.

She says, “I have MS; I was diagnosed in 2019.” Ashley has gotten remission, or a cure, from a carnivore diet, and this is her story.

“It started out I was seeing spots in my eyes. I went to a neurologist, they did an MRI and diagnosed me with optic migraines. In September, I was having tingling in my right middle finger and they tested me for carpal tunnel, and found that I had mild carpal tunnel. I told them…There’s something more going on.”

“When I went back to get my carpal tunnel results, I said ‘well, the tingling has now moved down my arm, into my leg, down to my right foot, and jumped over to my left foot. They did another MRI, and found that I could possibly have MS.”

Ashley’s husband became interested: “My husband has Alzheimer’s, which runs in his family, and he said he was going to start this crazy diet in October of 2019. I said if you’re going to spend all that money on meat, then I guess I’ll jump in head first too, and try it out with you!”

Ashley says her neurologist was onboard: “I jumped in, loved it, found out I had MS, found out that keto is a treatment for MS and I approached my neurologist and said ‘well can you at least allow me to try this diet to treat my MS as opposed to taking this four or five thousand dollar a month medicine?’ She gave me the benefit of the doubt and said ‘yeah, let’s go ahead and try it.”

Ashley proceeded with the diet, and “unintentionally transitioned to carnivore within about three months.” She felt “wonderful on keto” but “even more amazing on carnivore.” She did, however, begin to get relief from her MS symptoms when she started her keto diet. “As soon as I started on the keto diet my symptoms started to subside, and I’ve been completely asymptomatic since about December of 2019.”

Ashley is now in year four of her diet, as are her husband and her father. She says, “I cook a Picahna at the beginning of the week, cut it up, and eat that five days a week, and I don’t get bored of it!”

Her father “has diabetes, and he has come off of five diabetic medications, dropped his A1c from 11 to 6.9, so it’s a family effort with us.”

Imaging has verified her healing, as Ashley initially agreed to an MRI every six months to monitor her MS lesions, but her schedule has been reduced to annually because of her progress.

“Every MRI that I have had, my lesions have not remained the same. They have decreased in size.

Dave improves stroke symptoms on carnivore diet

Born in Scotland and raised in Australia, Dave’s family relocated to the city of Melbourne when he was just a wee lad of six years old. One morning, in his last year of high school, he woke up feeling strangely. “I thought, ‘What’s wrong with me? Have I got a virus? I feel kind of odd.’” Dave shrugged it off and went about his day, but two hours later, he realized something was seriously wrong. He went to the hospital, and was diagnosed with a subarachnoid hemorrhage. Shockingly, at only 17 years old, Dave had suffered a stroke.

He was able to receive life-saving surgery that corrected the problem, but Dave’s lucky escape came along with the common side effects people experience after suffering a stroke. He had palsy on one side of his face, as well as a significant limp in his leg that would worsen as he tired throughout the day. Some of the symptoms got better with time, but his trouble with walking stayed, as well as persistent brain fog and anxiety-ridden indecisiveness.

Seventeen years ago, Dave decided to change locales once again, and he moved from Australia to the city of Osaka, Japan. He continued to struggle physically, but had become accustomed to his “new normal.” When he went for an annual checkup in June of last year, his doctor informed him that he was most likely pre-diabetic. It was a wake-up call, and Dave decided to make a change. He started eating a ketogenic diet, and after experiencing moderate success, learned about the carnivore way of eating. In Japan, meat isn’t vilified like it is in western countries abroad, so he decided to jump right in and try it. That’s when Dave’s health really started to kick into high gear.

Miraculously, he began to see major improvements in his stroke symptoms—nearly thirty years after the incident. Dave’s walking had gotten even worse due to arthritis emerging in his left knee. Now, six months into the carnivore diet, his arthritis was gone, and Dave was no longer hobbling on his walk to the train station. While he acknowledges that some stroke symptoms will never completely go away, they are now a shadow of their former selves. Other unexpected benefits include weight loss, better balance, and clearer skin. His gum disease is also gone, and he no longer has flatulence—a huge bonus as Dave does quite a bit of public speaking. The brain fog and indecisiveness have also disappeared, and have beenreplaced with a greater sense of peace and self-control.

Dave recently started a Youtube channel in the hopes that sharing his story can help others who are searching for similar health breakthroughs. “Honestly, with my Youtube channel, I’m just hoping to kind of spread the word, because we’ve had the wool pulled over our eyes for our entire lives…we’ve been told, you know, ‘Eat bread, eat whole grains, eat pasta…have a balanced diet,’ and we’re sicker than ever. And if I can get, you know, one or two more people to give it a try, then it’s worth it.”

Rachel gets relief from Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, Dysautonomia (POTS) on the carnivore diet

Rachel lives in North Carolina and is 27 years old. She ate a standard diet as a child, with lots of “pizza and chicken nuggets.” She wanted to be a vegetarian, but her mother wouldn’t allow it. Rachel still avoided meat as much as possible.

She was sick for most of the last six years, with celiac disease before that. In college, she started getting “unusual neurological symptoms,” which led to a diagnosis of hypermobile Ehler-Danlos Syndrome dysautonomia or POTS, celiac disease, intracranial hypertension, Chiari malformation, colored cord syndrome, adrenal insufficiency, and chronic Lyme disease. She had enough gastroparesis that she almost needed a feeding tube.

Rachel was able to see the “top doctors” specializing in those problems, but “they ultimately didn’t really help me and I actually had five brain and neurosurgeries during that time. A craniocervical fusion, a Chiari decompression surgery, a tethered cord release surgery, two venous stents placed in my brain…while some of those treatments did provide temporary relief, as time went on I continued to get worse.”

With nonepileptic seizures, tinnitus, light sensitivity, and severe headaches, she was “completely debilitated with symptoms” and frequently required to lie in a silent, dark room. She used a wheelchair when not at home, and spent “the better part of several years in bed.”

Two years ago, when surgeons recommended a brain shunt, Rachel decided to go “a different route” with how she was approaching her health problems. She was looking for answers and a better quality of life through a natural route, and considered plant-based regimens as well. Rachel tried a vegetarian diet for about a month, “but that did not go so well.” She found out about the carnivore diet, researched it extensively for about a month, and decided to give it a try.

Since going on the carnivore diet, and with the help of prolotherapy on her upper neck, Rachel has been able to stop using a neck brace 24/7. Her Vagus nerve is healing, and the pressures in her brain are normalizing. She has also been doing some brain training work to address her subconscious and build her belief in healing.

“I eat a lot of cuts that have a lot of connective tissue, like chuck roast. At this point, I eat a lot of raw butter to up the fat intake; I do feel better with a higher fat intake.” She also eats bone broth and some organ meats.

Rachel’s father did the carnivore diet with her to be supportive. She estimates that she is “about 30 percent better” and is now able to cook all her own meals and help clean the house. “I walked my first mile earlier this year and now I go on a walk every day.”

Her EDS had also caused joint pains, but “it’s mostly gone, I don’t see subluxations and dislocations really at all any more.” With the help of her new diet, Rachel is getting her life back!

 

Lily healed from inflammation and digestive and skin issues on a strict carnivore diet

Lily is a self-avowed anarchist living in Mexico. She was featured in an HBO special about the anarchist movement, and her carnivore journey is also chronicled in that special: “You can see the progression of me from my pre-carnivore very sickly days until, you know, now, where I’m more or less healed from a lot of the stuff that I dealt with.”

Lily and her boyfriend stayed engaged in the anarchist community, eventually moving to Mexico, where a large group has formed. This choice, however, would lead to her boyfriend’s murder later.

When she and her boyfriend moved to Acapulco, they were planning on participating in the anarchist community. What they found, however, was that “it was a bunch of rich snooty vegans, and something not mentioned in the series that is actually a big part of the conflict that happened within the community (the conflict is covered but not this specific part of it) was the opinion of the people that were running the event at the time, and running the community…that you couldn’t be an anarchist and still consume animal products, that it was inherently violent in nature.”

Lily and her boyfriend got into a situation where they were processing marijuana that they bought from the drug cartel into oil, which they sold to “gringos.” When they started growing their own marijuana and cut out the cartel, her boyfriend was murdered.

Lily was eating a standard American diet with “emphasis on junk food because that’s how I was raised” and was nauseous most days, “having to sit down and calm my stomach,” was dizzy all the time, and had “horrible migraines that would put me to bed at 7 p.m. every day. She had IBS, and felt “like I was falling apart.” She was “covered in open sores from chronic cystic acne.”

When Lily saw the Joe Rogan interview with Dr. Baker, she says, “that’s actually what got me to give it a try.” She “practiced strict carnivore for almost 2 years, with about 6 months of the lion diet to deal with inflammation, nervous system inflammation, chronic digestive issues, and horrible skin issues. This was from about mid-2018 to early 2020, which was during the filming of the HBO series The Anarchists.”

Her carnivore experience shifted the Acapulco anarchist community away from dogmatic veganism, and many members are now carnivores.

Lily has found great relief from her acne, IBS, nausea, chronic diarrhea, and constipation, and she has better energy. Her depression is gone, as is her joint pain. She still has some anxiety and tension headaches, but she attributes this to her stressful life choices.

She has been working on reintroducing some foods back into her diet while remaining vigilant about not returning to the ill health she had earlier. Her diet is still heavily meat-based, and she is “Still very much a believer in carnivore being good for healing the body and for determining specific trigger foods.”

Nanci heals from osteopenia on the carnivore diet

Hello my name is Nanci.  I am 66 years old a mother of 4 with one wonderful stepson and a grandmother of 9.  I was an RN and retired in 2016.  I have been married to a wonderful man for 43 years and for many years has served also a pastor’s wife for over 30 years.  


For as long as I can remember food has been a huge part of my life.  I practiced using it for comfort early on.  I first started a weight loss program when I was in high school.  Weight Watchers.  I weighed 140 lbs and was 5’8” tall.  I have always loved sweets.  I ate homemade meals growing up but also processed foods.  


My weight really started to climb when I started having children in my 20’s.  I got as high as 275 when I was carrying my third child.  I went back down to 220 and through the years crept up to over 300 lbs with the highest being 312 Lbs.  


I have tried over 20 diets in my lifetime but have never been able to stay on them for longer than one month at a time.  The diets were always low fat high carb diets.  I was starving on them.  I have been Carnivore for over 2.5 years that is still unbelievable to me.


In 2016 I retired because my knees were so painful.  I needed knee replacements.  I could no longer work.  I have cerebral palsy so my condition was more complicated and finally went out on disability.  Around the same time I heard about the Keto diet.  Diet Dr was all over the internet so I started following their approach to weight loss.  I also listened to Dr Westman a Cardiologist out of North Carolina and Keto United a group out of West Virginia. 


I lost weight like a rock.  Other benefits were: two weeks into the diet, arthritic pain was gone.  One month on the diet the 3+ edema in my legs was gone and two months into the diet my stasis ulcers were all healed up and I no longer had to wear surgical stockings.  I had a terrible fungal infection under my toe nails and it took two years to heal but that finally is completely gone. 


After a few years I found I could not loose anymore weight on keto.  I know now it was because I was having too much plant sugar and keto treats.  I also enjoyed listening to Dr Ken Berry and Neisha, his wife.  They made keto simple.  Then fortunately for me I discovered Dr Baker on Joe Rogan and he was talking about the Carnivore diet.  So I started listening to him and his VIP guests.


In January of 2020, Shawn started a Carnivore challenge for the month of January and in March of 2020 I joined Carnivore.Diet.  The varied meetings are so informative and the coaches are amazing.  They taught me so much and I soaked up the meetings and learned so much from the coaches and community.  


I initially gained weight on the Carnivore diet.  I was in a panic but Shawn’s platform and the coaching that I received there helped me stay on a steady course.  I learned that often we have to heal from the inside out first and that was certainly true for me.  At the beginning of 2020 I was diagnosed with osteopenia.  


I was also pretty debilitated mostly sitting in my chair at home.  Shawn encouraged me to exercise just a little at a time but to stay faithful.  I would do my very simple workouts while I was involved watching the Zoom meetings.  People were so encouraging. 


Approximately one year on carnivore I had to get down on the floor because I dropped a control under the bed.  I previously would never try to get down on my knees because I could never get up without assistance but no one was home to help me.  


I was able to get down and up again without difficulty, something I had not been able to do for over 15 years.   It encouraged me to stay faithful.  I also had a coach, Stephen Thomas aka The UK Carnivore, who helped target my exercise to help with my specific weaknesses as well as coach me with the carnivore way of eating. 


Just before starting carnivore I was diagnosed with Osteopenia.  I got another dexiscan  approximately two years later and it showed no osteopenia.  I also got a Calcium (CAC) test that shows the buildup of plaque in and around your heart arteries and my score was zero.  I was over the moon. 


When people ask me if I will continue with Carnivore Diet or go back to the Standard American Diet I always answer “There is nothing to go back to”.  I have never felt so good. 

Reagan heals from stuttering, stress, anxiety, pain, aches, dizziness, insomnia, obesity

Before the carnivore diet I was suffering with chronic depression, stress,  and anxiety. I would have panic attacks at night constantly along with sleep insomnia. All throughout my younger years it would take me 5-8 hours to fall asleep as i couldn’t fall asleep no matter the medication.  I sufferd with asthma as well; all throughout my life I was being rushed to hospitals in the middle of the night because i couldn’t breathe and my rescue inhaler wouldn’t work. 

Later in life in my teenage years was when the depression started. I tried ending my life on multiple occasions. Along with the stress, depression, and panic attacks at night, I also was suffering with chronic pain, head to toes. I had migrains and headaches almost every day non-stop. My joints were always killing me. I took pain killers all the time and nothing seemed to work. I was at even balding as a teenager and had horrible skin, I broke out bad. 

The heaviest I got up to was 258 pounds. I was obese and suffering. Although not diagnosed by a doctor, my blood pressure would shoot up when I tested it, and I would get so dizzy that I would literally fall it was just random spikes throughout the day. I knew something was off when everything around me started spinning. 

I also have been stuttering since I first began talking and went to speech therapy from before I was even in school to 7th grade. Eventually, I stopped trying; I just figured I would be stuttering forever. 

With carnivore, my depression has completely gone away. My stress, anxiety, pain, aches, dizziness, sleep, insomnia, and obesity are all gone. My stuttering has improved drastically. I stutter only once in a while now, whereas before it was every single word. I haven’t had any asthma attacks or breathing problems since going on this diet over 2 years ago . My hair grows like weeds now. Also, no more balding, no more skin issues, just everything is amazing and I’m no longer suffering.

Kevin is fighting off multiple sclerosis on a carnivore diet

Kevin was diagnosed with MS in 2011. He also had Lyme disease and was bipolar.

In junior college, Kevin had “a vegetarian trash panda diet.” He ate a lot of oreos, ramen, and pop tarts. This continued for 5 years, and he believes it set the stage for his MS.

Kevin performed as a juggler at Renaissance fairs. He noticed something was wrong when he couldn’t do juggling patterns that he’d been doing for years. An MRI found brain lesions, as well as lesions on his cervical and thoracic spine. At 27, Kevin had MS. Kevin was prescribed immune suppressing medications that made him susceptible to infections.

But he wasn’t getting any better with the medications alone. His wife thought that a vegan diet could help him, so he started a low-fat, plant-based diet.

Kevin felt better for a month because he wasn’t eating his “trash panda diet.” But it didn’t last—he had an overall downward trend for the next 8 years.

He couldn’t tie his shoes, button his shirt, walk, cook for himself, or think. He often had to use a wheelchair and a scooter at big box stores.

Kevin found research stating that the bacteria that causes Lyme disease is symbiotic with nematodes (worms). Because he was diagnosed with Lyme, he began a protocol to kill parasites. He ate keto with big “freakin” salads. Kevin felt somewhat better but had joint pain.

Kevin found Dr. Baker and started carnivore. But he was “foolhardy” because the improvements were so amazing. “I could work out, I could walk in the heat and bright light.” He thought he didn’t need medication anymore and stopped it “cold turkey.” “Coming off the meds so fast was horrible.” Additionally, Kevin learned he needed to eat more fat and upped his intake.

In 2021, Kevin had an MRI that revealed he had regained some cranial mass; he had lost 5 1/2 percent of his brain mass as evidenced by an MRI a decade earlier. And his previous cervical and thoracic lesions weren’t visible.

Kevin has been carnivore for a year and eats mostly beef. He gets beef fat trimmings and slices them to snack on. His diet is 80-85 percent fat. At 6’4″ and 165 pounds, Kevin eats about two pounds of meat each day. He buys grass or grain fed, whatever is affordable and available.

At his last follow-up, his neurologist ordered another MRI. Based on its results, Kevin may titrate off his immune-modulating medication.

“So,” Kevin says, “I tied my shoes this morning. I can button my pants. I can walk around in the yard.”

After years, Kevin is relearning juggling sequences and reawakening neural pathways. “Emotionally, I’m a lot more level,” Kevin maintains. And he is able to attend a local college.

To function better, Kevin exercises using dumbbells, resistance bands, and bodyweight. He’s particular about sleep and says it’s critical for him. Kevin has bad days, but says they are better than the good days he used to have when he was vegan.

Serena Overcame Inflammation and Parosmia

Looking back on her dieting journey, Serena describes her past self as a “typical female that’s been taught to restrict calories.” In constant pursuit of losing those last couple pounds, she obsessively counted and measured her food for years. She vividly remembers an episode of The Oprah Winfrey Show where Oprah described herself as a “carb addict.” She didn’t understand what the famous TV host meant at the time, but now realizes that she was in the exact same predicament—in an endless cycle of eating food that only made her crave more of the same.

When Serena got Covid at the end of 2020, she lost her taste and smell for several months. One day, she woke up and made herself a cup of coffee, and all of a sudden, the smell was so repulsive that it made her feel nauseous. She couldn’t drink it, and as time went on, she started to experience the same nausea when encountering other food items as well. What started off as a mild problem grew, and the list of things Serena could tolerate grew smaller and smaller. When she would go out to a restaurant with her family, she wore a face mask dabbed with essential oils to avoid the overwhelming smells around her. Where a normal person would walk in and say it smelled delicious, Serena would feel queasy at the most innocuous of foods.

She discovered that there was a name for her condition, Parosmia, and one of the only foods that didn’t make her feel ill were her beloved carbohydrates. After a birthday weekend where she ate twenty cupcakes in the span of two days, she knew she had to focus on the few remaining non-sugary foods she could eat. Funnily enough—by accident—it ended up becoming a carnivore diet. When she discovered there was a whole community of people eating this way, she pressed forward. “I was just grateful to have found something I could eat that didn’t make me nauseous all the time.”

Serena replaced the cupcakes with freshly cooked burger patties and steaks. After a while, was able to incorporate back in bacon, ribs, and light roast coffee— though she says it still doesn’t taste like coffee yet. Chicken, which previously made her feel nauseous, smells fine now, and she enjoys chicken wings cooked up in the air fryer about four times a week. “As long as it’s meat, I’m pretty happy with it.”

Along with being overjoyed to be able to give her body the nourishment it needs, Serena has been enjoying the other benefits that go along with eating carnivore, such as easy weight loss, more energy, and greater strength and agility in the gym.

The most wonderful benefit though—in Serena’s mind—is no longer being a slave to the restrictive calorie-counting that once dominated her life. Now, she simply eats when she’s hungry and stops when she’s full. “The fuel for my body is working for me…my mental health is in a much better state than it was before.”

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